Tag Archives: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

It hasn’t escaped my attention that when there is a genre of anime that I’m not a fan of there’s always a “but”. For example: I’m not a fan of magic girl series but my top anime of all time is Puella Magi Madoka Magica; I’m not a big fan of mecha series but my #2 top anime of all time is Gurren Lagann; I’m not a big fan of shoujo series but my #3 top anime of all time is Natsume’s Book of Friends; I’m not a big fan of sports anime but I love Cross Game and Chihayafuru (also a shoujo series) to death and recommend them whenever I can. Another example is idol shows – I’m not a fan but my #4 anime of 2012 was AKB0048.

The takeaway from this is, obviously, never make a blanket statement about any type of genre and to keep one’s mind open to trying something new (even if the chances remain high of disliking something). This thought ran through my mind after I heard something about Locodol that tweaked my interest and so, with a big sigh, I queued up Locodol to give it’s shot.

My brain broke a few days ago and I hope talking about the cause – Hunter x Hunter episode 116 – will start the healing process because I have a slew of mediocre to good anime series I’m watching right now that I’d like to finish and, right now, I have utterly no desire to do so.

This past weekend my sister was throwing a Halloween party for the extended family and, two days before, she came to me and asked if I’d make a Halloween mix playlist for the party. I knew she was expecting something containing ~10-15 tracks of mainly the “classics” like Monster Mash and a few instrumental pieces like the theme music of Twilight Zone and Psycho; however, I immediately thought of the eerie music from Shinsekai Yori and knew I needed to include that as well.

This set off a search through my other anime soundtrack albums – which, admittedly, is on the thin side – and I harvested almost 2 hours of music to use. I thought someone might find this list of anime songs useful in constructing their own playlist so I’m writing this post to share.

Long time readers of The Null Set will probably remember that at some point in February I make a post wishing everyone a Merry Christmas in February and today is that day for 2013. Merry Christmas in February! Now, may spring be on it’s way now.

Sneaky KyoAni; slipping this in the OP when it didn’t mean anything to the viewer.

Probably not in the way you’re thinking; I don’t think Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai (Chuu2) will put up anywhere near the same sales numbers as Madoka.

Shaft, the animation studio behind Madoka, is not a new animation studio. It was founded in 1975 and was a minor animation studio that produced only a few of it’s own animation series and movies for much of it’s history. That began to change when Akiyuki Shinbou was brought in to direct Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase for them back in 2004. After that series he stuck around and has directed to some degree almost every series Shaft has produced since then. Their profile slowly increased, in spite of the low budgets and hurried deadlines, and they had the chance to work on a wide variety of series like Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei to Hidamari Sketch.

The danger of putting together a list like this is the sudden temptation to rewatch the series that one mentions instead of trying to finish writing up said list. A quick look at what I’m watching confirms that I don’t even have the room to fit in Planetes, Haibane Renmei, or Paranoia Agent. To name but three series that I really want to rewatch right now, maybe over the quieter summer season I’ll find the time. (It might be a quiet season but there’s still Moyashimon season 2 to get excited about.)